MIDDLETOWN, Maryland (PNN) - June 28, 2013 - Randy and Karen Sowers are not your typical terrorists or mob financiers. They run the popular South Mountain Creamery and sell their produces at farmer’s markets and local events.
However, the Somers were confronted recently by Amerikan Gestapo Federal Bureau of Investigation division agents who informed them that the Amerikan Gestapo Department of InJustice division was moving to seize their accounts under a law designed to thwart mob and terrorist financiers. They had made repeated deposits under $10,000. The Department of InJustice has seized their account of $62,936 under the law as illegal “structuring”. The criminal provision is written in a way to avoid the need for actual intent or knowledge of the illegality.
The FBI documented nearly three-dozen deposits into their company’s bank account just under $10,000. The Department of InJustice takes the position that the transactions alone are sufficient to seize private assets.
Yet few people are aware that such a pattern can be deemed illegal structuring. Perhaps our tax lawyers can fill in the details, but I assume that this money is still reported as income by the business regardless of the deposit amount. Thus, there is no evidence of a benefit to the company in structuring.
What is remarkable is that this is a trap intentionally set by Congress at the demand of the Department of InJustice. In 1994, in Ratslaf v. U.S, Justice Ruth Ginsburg interpreted the “willfully” element under 31 U.S.C. Sec. 5324 to require proof that the defendant knew the structuring was illegal. That would seem to create a fair and workable solution to structuring - confining it to the truly criminal element. However, Congress responded to the opinion by removing willfulness from the statute.
According to reports, Randy Sowers told agents, “During the farmers’ market season, his weekly cash receipts were on the order of $12,000 to $14,000.” He admitted that “he kept his cash deposits under $10,000 intentionally so as not to throw up red flags.” He says that he was advised to keep the checks below $10,000 by a teller to avoid forms being filed. Yet, there is no charge of tax evasion. Thus, while the Department of InJustice insists that there is a reasonable belief that there was “an intentional scheme or plan to hold back cash receipts,” it is not clear what benefit the family derived from the practice beyond simply not being reported for such checks. I could understand if this was done for the purpose of some criminal benefit, but there is no indication of a collateral crime.